


Time Stopped

by wwwjudedotcom



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:53:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26524003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wwwjudedotcom/pseuds/wwwjudedotcom
Summary: Alex explaining why he left Roswell. Communication!
Relationships: Michael Guerin/Alex Manes
Kudos: 23





	Time Stopped

**Author's Note:**

> This was the first thing I ever wrote and it's got a soft spot in my heart, please be kind

He knocked on the door and waited, unsure if it was loud enough. He went to knock again, but Michael opened the door before he could. 

“Manes.”

Time stopped.

“Guerin.”

Alex took a deep breath. They never talked, not really, not about the things that mattered. And this mattered; they mattered. 

“Can we talk? I owe you an explanation. There’s something you should know.”

Michael hadn’t seen Alex in ten years. He didn’t want an explanation: he wanted to rip his clothes off and cover him with kisses instead. He wanted to be seventeen again at the UFO Emporium on Alex’s ten minute break. He wanted the last ten years to disappear, and looking into his eyes, they seemed to. But instead of kissing him, Guerin stepped out of his trailer and gestured to the chairs in front. He noticed a crutch in Alex’s hand, but nobody mentioned it. Nobody mentioned the lack of military uniform either. Michael just watched as Alex slowly lowered himself into the chair and set his crutch down. 

“Explanation?” Guerin barely had the capacity to remember why Alex was here in the first place. 

“For leaving Roswell,” Alex paused, noticing the way Michael looked at him, at his leg, the one that wasn’t there, and he knew his mind was working overtime to understand, “For leaving you.”

And that was it. Michael was done, his eyes locked on Alex’s. Neither of them had made plans to stay in Roswell, neither made plans to stay together, but for him, it was a given. He had thought it was for Alex too. Until that night in the shed. After that, the two could barely make eye contact in the halls. Everything seemed to disappear. And then Alex left to fight a war that wasn’t his to fight. 

Michael stayed quiet this time, not wanting to say the wrong thing at the wrong time like he usually did.

“I wanted to be the kind of person who won his battles,” He said softly, eyes moving downwards and away from Guerin, “After my father became the reason for your pain, I just wanted to win battles. Because that day I lost, I lost everything. So I left. I couldn’t win when it counted, when it was you I was fighting for. So I had to find somewhere I could win. Somewhere it didn’t hurt so much when I lost.”

Michael looked at Alex, wanting to ask him if losing a limb hurt more or less than losing him. He wanted to know if he found a war easier than him. He wanted to know if they had already lost the war because sometimes it felt like they had. Michael tried to get Alex to look at him; he failed. Alex couldn’t look away from his hand, the mangled and broken mess of fingers. He was the reason for that; he wouldn’t accept anything else. 

“You never had to fight my battles for me. I never asked you to do that,” Guerin raised his voice, even as it broke.

Even when there were ten years and half a world between them, Michael was still defensive, never admitting he needed anything from anyone.

“You didn’t have to.”

Alex had been fighting wars his entire life, so when Michael Guerin sauntered in, curled hair golden and skin in a perfect tan after a long summer, it made perfect sense that he would be the next one. 

“I never meant for any of this to happen, and I never blamed you. Ever.”

Alex let out a breath, finally looking up. He could tell he was being honest. When he wasn’t, there was always something just beneath the surface of his eyes wanting to say more but holding back. He wasn’t holding back this time. He meant it. So then why couldn’t Alex stop blaming himself? All these years Michael had been not blaming him, not hating him, not not loving him.

“I just wanted to make things right,” Alex held his hand over his right knee, looking at the empty space where his leg should have been.

“And going halfway around the world was making it right? Almost dying was making it right? How?! I was here, Alex. The fight was here.”

“I wanted a fight I could win! I wanted to come back and tell you that I had won. That I had stood up to the bad guys. That nobody could hurt-” He took a short breath, his mind racing, and he didn't finish the sentence, “I wanted to come back and make you feel safe, the way you made me feel before.”

Alex knew how stupid it sounded, how ridiculous he was being. Being a soldier wouldn’t protect Michael. Michael didn’t need his protection anyways, but he thought for a moment that he could save him, that leaving would keep Guerin out of danger. He had thought distancing himself from Michael was the best thing for both of them, but what if he was wrong? What if leaving town meant leaving the possibility of them in the rearview mirror? A decade behind him? A distant what if instead of coming back to a close certainty?

“I never feel safe with you, Manes,” Michael said, quickly trying to explain before Alex got up and left, again, “I can never tell where we’ll land, or if we’re going to land at all. It’s a fucking metaphor, but it’s all I got right now, okay? I never feel safe because this,” He gestured between them, “This isn’t supposed to feel safe. This is cosmic. This was worth fighting wars for.” 

The lump in Alex’s throat grew three sizes too big, almost stopped his breathing entirely. He couldn’t even win his own wars, how was he supposed to win Michael’s? 

“We are worth fighting wars for. At least I thought we were. But you left and I didn’t know whose war you were even in. I couldn’t tell what we were fighting for anymore.” Michael admitted. 

“I don’t think I knew,” It came out as a whisper, “My father was my war, when I was here, but I ran from it. I didn’t think I could win. I escaped into a war that shouldn’t have even existed. A war that literally took a piece of me with it, but it still hurt less than watching my father smash your hand with that fucking hammer. I wanted a war less painful than this one. And now, now I don’t even know if ten years is too long for wars to last, if this war is still-”

It wasn’t a question, it wasn’t even a finished thought, but it felt like one. Alex let it dangle in the air like the weight it was. It wasn’t a question, but if it were, it would have been this: Are we still worth fighting for? He didn’t know if he would come out of this war alive, but he needed to know he was not fighting alone. Because if he was, that would kill him before anything else had the chance.

Michael didn’t say anything, trying to figure out the answer after a decade of not knowing where the love of his life was, if he was even still alive. After a decade of cosmic uncertainty and fighting alone in a war, Michael found the answer to the only question that mattered. Before Alex had the chance to leave, he heard the scrape of Michael’s chair as he stood. He towered over him, eyes electric with the answer to the unasked question.

“We’re cosmic, Manes. Ten years is nothing,” He held his hand out; they were cosmic, worth fighting for, and Alex’s breath caught in his throat for the hundredth time since he’d come home to Michael Guerin. 


End file.
